Principal Software Engineer

Responsibilities

• Get deeply into applications, codebases, data flows, integrations, and operational behavior
• Turn ambiguous engineering problems into clear options, tradeoffs, and recommended approaches
• Contribute meaningful production code and own high-impact technical work
• Partner with architects to craft practical approaches for evolving the product landscape
• Recommend modernization investments based on evidence, value, risk, and reversibility
• Be a high-leverage technical partner on cross-product architectural decisions
• Coach senior engineers and technical leads through design, pairing, and code review
• Apply modern AI-assisted development practically and identify valuable AI opportunities

Requirements

• 10+ years professional software engineering experience as a senior technical leader
• Recent hands-on experience with PHP, MySQL, Java, and MS SQL Server at Principal or Staff level
• Strong application architecture skills across APIs, data models, integrations, and failure modes
• Experience evolving mature, long-lived software systems incrementally
• Strong technical judgment balancing maintainability, risk, cost, and team capacity
• Ability to turn ambiguous situations into clear problems and executable paths
• Practical fluency with AI-assisted software development

Preferred Qualifications

• Complex, long-lived application platforms with significant integrations
• Incremental modernization, migrations, or modularization of active products
• Systems involving sensitive data, identity, authentication, or privacy
• Education technology or complex customer and operational environments
• Building AI-enabled product capabilities in production

Benefits

• Remote-first work environment with reimbursement for home office setup

About the Company

ExploreK12 is an educational technology company serving over 17 million students and educators across 150+ countries. Its products include Gizmos, Raz-Plus, and Reflex, and it is part of the Cambium Learning Group.